XPS 8900, upgrades WiFi 6, BT5, additional RAM

Before you upgrade Wi-Fi card in pc you first need to have WiFi 6 router. If you do not have Wi-Fi 6 router, even if you have Wi-Fi 6 card in pc it would not have advantage over Wi-Fi 5.  Wi-Fi 6 is better for multiple device connected to one router than speed of each device.  It can support more devices without bandwidth congestion but the max speed on each device alone does not increase dramatically.

unless you do video editing or content creation or 3D modeling that needs a beefy memory, most standard apps including gaming do not need more than 16 gb ram.  If you plan to sell the 8900 and buff up the spec (looks/sounds good but not really beneficial), then yes install another 2x8 gb or 2x4 gb to make it 32 or 24 gb.

real beneficial upgrade would be ssd and gpu compared to Wi-Fi or ram.

Thanks for your reply and input. That is really helpful!  I didn't realize the necessity of a WiFi6 router.  I was only trying to increase the speed at my desktop.  Unfortunately, a wired wifi connection is not feasible for this machine.  The speed isn't terrible now, so I can live with it.

I work a lot from home and use multiple design and editing software programs at the same time. On a very regular basis I have AutoCad, Photoshop & Corel open at the same time (as well as small demand programs such as Excel, Google, Outlook & OneNote.  I occasionally notice a lag when switching between programs and thought additional RAM may help.  I have a laptop that I use while traveling with 32GB of RAM and it runs flawlessly.  However, it also has a SSD and is half the age of my desktop. 

Thanks again for your comments! I appreciate you taking the time to help a novice!

There is a some inaccurate information on how to upgrade the Dell XPS 8900 SSD on the web, so I thought I would quickly write up my experience.

I’ve had my Dell XPS 8900 for a few years now and the primary storage is out of space. But other than that it is still a decent machine.

The XPS 8900 has an M.2 / SATA slot. So it is not a NVMe capable. More information can be found in the XPS 8900 Service Manual here.

My machine came with a Lite-On 256Gb drive and I have replaced it with a 1TB Samsung 860 EVO M.2 but there are other sizes which might suit you better.

I wanted to clone my existing SSD to the new drive and Samsung provide easy to use data migration software with their SSDs.

The problem is because the existing drive is in the internal m2 slot there is no way to clone the drive without additional hardware. So I also bought this external Transcend M.2 Drive Enclosure:

I put the new Samsung SSD in the external enclosure and then connected it to the USB 3 port on the front of the Dell XPS 8900 and ran the transfer, it took about 40 minutes to finish.

Once it was complete I installed the new drive in the machine:

I put the original drive into the external enclosure to make use of it again.

Overall this is a quick and easy upgrade to perform., the most difficult part is sliding the graphics card out of the machine. Any m.2 sata SSD should work and there are cheaper options than the Samsung available.

The procedure above is quick and simple to do, but the performance of the SSD will be limited by the SATA interface. If you want the best performance from your XPS 8900 use an NVMe drive connected to a spare PCIe slot.

Although the XPS 8900 does not have an NVMe slot, it is capable of booting from one. I used this cheap NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter from Amazon with a Samsung 970 PRO 512GB and got some impressive results:

How to Upgrade Dell XPS 8900 SSD
SEPTEMBER 21, 2019 by PAULIE 26 COMMENTS

There is a some inaccurate information on how to upgrade the Dell XPS 8900 SSD on the web, so I thought I would quickly write up my experience.

I’ve had my Dell XPS 8900 for a few years now and the primary storage is out of space. But other than that it is still a decent machine.

The XPS 8900 has an M.2 / SATA slot. So it is not a NVMe capable. More information can be found in the XPS 8900 Service Manual here.

My machine came with a Lite-On 256Gb drive and I have replaced it with a 1TB Samsung 860 EVO M.2 but there are other sizes which might suit you better.

Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E500BW)
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E1T0BW)
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E2T0BW)
$67.00
$149.87
Price not available
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E500BW)
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E1T0BW)
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB M.2 SATA Internal SSD (MZ-N6E2T0BW)
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Amazon
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-
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I wanted to clone my existing SSD to the new drive and Samsung provide easy to use data migration software with their SSDs.

The problem is because the existing drive is in the internal m2 slot there is no way to clone the drive without additional hardware. So I also bought this external Transcend M.2 Drive Enclosure:

Transcend TS-CM80S M.2 2280/2260 to USB3.1 Upgrade Kit, Silver
Transcend TS-CM80S M.2 2280/2260 to USB3.1 Upgrade Kit, Silver
M.2 SSD enclosure kit
Lightweight yet durable aluminum construction
CM80 enclosure is for Type 2242, 2260, and 2280 m.2 SSD
All-inclusive package
Usb Type-A and Type-C supported
$25.24
Buy on Amazon
I put the new Samsung SSD in the external enclosure and then connected it to the USB 3 port on the front of the Dell XPS 8900 and ran the transfer, it took about 40 minutes to finish.

Once it was complete I installed the new drive in the machine:

Image of Samsung EVO 860 Installed in Dell XPS 8900
SAMSUNG EVO 860 INSTALLED INSIDE DELL XPS 8900
I put the original drive into the external enclosure to make use of it again.

Overall this is a quick and easy upgrade to perform., the most difficult part is sliding the graphics card out of the machine. Any m.2 sata SSD should work and there are cheaper options than the Samsung available.

Can you install an NVMe drive in the Dell XPS 8900?
The procedure above is quick and simple to do, but the performance of the SSD will be limited by the SATA interface. If you want the best performance from your XPS 8900 use an NVMe drive connected to a spare PCIe slot.

Although the XPS 8900 does not have an NVMe slot, it is capable of booting from one. I used this cheap NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter from Amazon with a Samsung 970 PRO 512GB and got some impressive results:

Here is the benchmark results of the Samsung 860 on the internal M2 slot:

As you can see, the NVMe drive provides a huge performance increase over the SATA based M2 slot on the motherboard. The other advantage of this approach is that you do not need to remove the graphics card in order to install it, here is the card:

It also comes with a heatsink which I put on before putting it into the machine, below the graphics card:

This is a cheap and easy way to give a performance boost to an older machine, let me know your results if you try it.

 

Regards,

Rachel Gomez